SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix for Jiangsu Wuzhong (China)
Based on various researches at Oak Spring University , Jiangsu Wuzhong is operating in a macro-environment that has been destablized by – there is backlash against globalization, increasing inequality as vast percentage of new income is going to the top 1%, technology disruption, digital marketing is dominated by two big players Facebook and Google, increasing commodity prices, increasing transportation and logistics costs, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies,
talent flight as more people leaving formal jobs, supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , etc
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University, we believe that Jiangsu Wuzhong can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Jiangsu Wuzhong, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Jiangsu Wuzhong operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Jiangsu Wuzhong can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning of Jiangsu Wuzhong
2. Improving business portfolio management of Jiangsu Wuzhong
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in China
4. Making a Metal Mining sector specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Jiangsu Wuzhong
Strengths of Jiangsu Wuzhong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Jiangsu Wuzhong are -
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in – Jiangsu Wuzhong staying ahead in the Metal Mining industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
High switching costs
– The high switching costs that Jiangsu Wuzhong has built up over years in its products and services combo offer has resulted in high retention of customers, lower marketing costs, and greater ability of the firm to focus on its customers.
Learning organization
- Jiangsu Wuzhong is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Jiangsu Wuzhong is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders at Jiangsu Wuzhong emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Innovation driven organization
– Jiangsu Wuzhong is one of the most innovative firm in Metal Mining sector.
Superior customer experience
– The customer experience strategy of Jiangsu Wuzhong in Metal Mining industry is based on four key concepts – personalization, simplification of complex needs, prompt response, and continuous engagement.
Ability to lead change in Metal Mining
– Jiangsu Wuzhong is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry in China. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in the Metal Mining industry in China but also across the existing markets. The ability to lead change has enabled Jiangsu Wuzhong in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
Diverse revenue streams
– Jiangsu Wuzhong is present in almost all the verticals within the Metal Mining industry. This has provided Jiangsu Wuzhong a diverse revenue stream that has helped it to survive disruptions such as global pandemic in Covid-19, financial disruption of 2008, and supply chain disruption of 2021.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive Metal Mining industry. Secondly the value chain collaborators of Jiangsu Wuzhong have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Training and development
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has one of the best training and development program in Basic Materials industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Organizational Resilience of Jiangsu Wuzhong
– The covid-19 pandemic has put organizational resilience at the centre of everthing Jiangsu Wuzhong does. Organizational resilience comprises - Financial Resilience, Operational Resilience, Technological Resilience, Organizational Resilience, Business Model Resilience, and Reputation Resilience.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Jiangsu Wuzhong has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Digital Transformation in Metal Mining industry
- digital transformation varies from industry to industry. For Jiangsu Wuzhong digital transformation journey comprises differing goals based on market maturity, customer technology acceptance, and organizational culture. Jiangsu Wuzhong has successfully integrated the four key components of digital transformation – digital integration in processes, digital integration in marketing and customer relationship management, digital integration into the value chain, and using technology to explore new products and market opportunities.
Weaknesses of Jiangsu Wuzhong | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Jiangsu Wuzhong are -
Need for greater diversity
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has taken concrete steps on diversity, equity, and inclusion. But the efforts so far has resulted in limited success. It needs to expand the recruitment and selection process to hire more people from the minorities and underprivileged background.
Interest costs
– Compare to the competition, Jiangsu Wuzhong has borrowed money from the capital market at higher rates. It needs to restructure the interest payment and costs so that it can compete better and improve profitability.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Jiangsu Wuzhong has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the Metal Mining industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Jiangsu Wuzhong is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Metal Mining industry, but Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Jiangsu Wuzhong to focus more on services in the Metal Mining industry rather than just following the product oriented approach.
Slow to harness new channels of communication
– Even though competitors are using new communication channels such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Snap, Jiangsu Wuzhong is slow explore the new channels of communication. These new channels of communication can help Jiangsu Wuzhong to provide better information regarding Metal Mining products and services. It can also build an online community to further reach out to potential customers.
Slow to strategic competitive environment developments
– As Jiangsu Wuzhong is one of the leading players in the Metal Mining industry, it takes time to assess the upcoming competitions. This has led to missing out on atleast 2-3 big opportunities in the Metal Mining industry in last five years.
Compensation and incentives
– The revenue per employee of Jiangsu Wuzhong is just above the Metal Mining industry average. It needs to redesign the compensation structure and incentives to increase the revenue per employees. Some of the steps that it can take are – hiring more specialists on project basis, etc.
No frontier risks strategy
– From the 10K / annual statement of Jiangsu Wuzhong, it seems that company is thinking out the frontier risks that can impact Metal Mining industry. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Aligning sales with marketing
– From the outside it seems that Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the Metal Mining industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department at Jiangsu Wuzhong can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Jiangsu Wuzhong is planning to shift buying processes online.
Employees’ less understanding of Jiangsu Wuzhong strategy
– From the outside it seems that the employees of Jiangsu Wuzhong don’t have comprehensive understanding of the firm’s strategy. This is reflected in number of promotional campaigns over the last few years that had mixed messaging and competing priorities. Some of the strategic activities and services promoted in the promotional campaigns were not consistent with the organization’s strategy.
Workers concerns about automation
– As automation is fast increasing in the Metal Mining industry, Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to come up with a strategy to reduce the workers concern regarding automation. Without a clear strategy, it could lead to disruption and uncertainty within the organization.
Jiangsu Wuzhong Opportunities | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities of Jiangsu Wuzhong are -
Using analytics as competitive advantage
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has spent a significant amount of money and effort to integrate analytics and machine learning into its operations in Metal Mining sector. This continuous investment in analytics has enabled Jiangsu Wuzhong to build a competitive advantage using analytics. The analytics driven competitive advantage can help Jiangsu Wuzhong to build faster Go To Market strategies, better consumer insights, developing relevant product features, and building a highly efficient supply chain.
Creating value in data economy
– The success of analytics program of Jiangsu Wuzhong has opened avenues for new revenue streams for the organization in Metal Mining industry. This can help Jiangsu Wuzhong to build a more holistic ecosystem for Jiangsu Wuzhong products in the Metal Mining industry by providing – data insight services, data privacy related products, data based consulting services, etc.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Jiangsu Wuzhong can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Buying journey improvements
– Jiangsu Wuzhong can improve the customer journey of consumers in the Metal Mining industry by using analytics and artificial intelligence. It can provide automated chats to help consumers solve their own problems, provide online suggestions to get maximum out of the products and services, and help consumers to build a community where they can interact with each other to develop new features and uses.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Jiangsu Wuzhong can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Jiangsu Wuzhong operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Metal Mining sector.
Harnessing reconfiguration of the global supply chains
– As the trade war between US and China heats up in the coming years, Jiangsu Wuzhong can build a diversified supply chain model across various countries in - South East Asia, India, and other parts of the world. This reconfiguration of global supply chain can help Jiangsu Wuzhong to buy more products closer to the markets, and it can leverage its size and influence to get better deal from the local markets.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Jiangsu Wuzhong to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Jiangsu Wuzhong to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Jiangsu Wuzhong can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Manufacturing automation
– Jiangsu Wuzhong can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Metal Mining sector. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Redefining models of collaboration and team work
– As explained in the weaknesses section, Jiangsu Wuzhong is facing challenges because of the dominance of functional experts in the organization. Jiangsu Wuzhong can utilize new technology in the field of Metal Mining industry to build more coordinated teams and streamline operations and communications using tools such as CAD, Zoom, etc.
Loyalty marketing
– Jiangsu Wuzhong has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Finding new ways to collaborate
– Covid-19 has not only transformed business models of companies in Metal Mining industry, but it has also influenced the consumer preferences. Jiangsu Wuzhong can tie-up with other value chain partners to explore new opportunities regarding meeting customer demands and building a rewarding and engaging relationship.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Jiangsu Wuzhong to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Jiangsu Wuzhong External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats of Jiangsu Wuzhong are -
Backlash against dominant players
– US Congress and other legislative arms of the government are getting tough on big business especially technology companies. The digital arm of Jiangsu Wuzhong business can come under increasing regulations regarding data privacy, data security, etc.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Jiangsu Wuzhong will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Jiangsu Wuzhong in the Metal Mining sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Easy access to finance
– Easy access to finance in Metal Mining industry will also reduce the barriers to entry in the industry, thus putting downward pressure on the prices because of increasing competition. Jiangsu Wuzhong can utilize it by borrowing at lower rates and invest it into research and development, capital expenditure to fortify its core competitive advantage.
Consumer confidence and its impact on Jiangsu Wuzhong demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in Metal Mining industry and other sectors.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Jiangsu Wuzhong high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Jiangsu Wuzhong can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate Jiangsu Wuzhong prominent markets.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, Jiangsu Wuzhong may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Metal Mining sector.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Jiangsu Wuzhong can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the Metal Mining industry.
Shortening product life cycle
– it is one of the major threat that Jiangsu Wuzhong is facing in Metal Mining sector. It can lead to higher research and development costs, higher marketing expenses, lower customer loyalty, etc.
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Metal Mining industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Jiangsu Wuzhong Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers at Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of Jiangsu Wuzhong is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of Jiangsu Wuzhong is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Jiangsu Wuzhong to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Jiangsu Wuzhong needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.